Metaphysical
by CityofPopolac
Summary: An experimental piece featuring Johann Kraus and his interaction with Kate Corrigon. Kate begins to ask questions that takes an injury examination into an entirely different direction. Does not contain sexual content. Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

**I apologize in advance for the poor quality of this fan fiction. I wanted to work with Kraus at a human level, and needed a female character to provoke it. In my haste I chose Kate (featured in the comics) and I know she is grossly out of character. I do not own Johann Kraus or Kate.**

* * *

Kraus examined the wound with his gloved hand and the coarse fabric was not a welcomed feeling. There was no heat under the touch and this planted a seed of sudden concern when the realization slipped from Kate's mind that this was not a human treating her. The whirring of his containment suit was as present as other sounds encountered by coworkers, but she began to develop the idea that had made him as different as it did familiar. The gusts of released steam from his helmet had once frightened her, something so alien that her brain refused to accept his functioning within manmade material. Now it blended in with wind, slamming doors, clicking keyboards - everything that made Kate's everyday life what it was.

Her thoughts had consumed her mind to the point that when Kraus pressed on her burn she almost forgot it was already there, tricked by the pain into thinking he had injured her. "Hey!" she called out before she could filter her mouth and Johann started.

"Entschuldigen - please excuse me," he exclaimed and discontinued the pressing, barely touching her skin. Kate looked at the thick glass of his helmet as her mind wandered again, suddenly perceiving this long-time agent as a brand new species all over again. He released a breeze of steam and its intense heat washed over her bruised flesh.

"I never asked but..." she trailed off and Kraus angled his helmet towards her. "Are you... breathing? When you do that, I mean." her cheeks were red with unavoidable embarrassment - she'd known Johann for months and it would only make sense for her to have gathered a plethora of information about her agents. She had been selfish.

"You could say that," he responded, clacking across the room to his work bench where he began to leaf through yellowed pages of the ancient volumes he had hauled in with him from Munich. "It's a complex process. It resembles more so the release of built up heat from spent energy." he was quiet for a moment. "What injured you was not an uncommon demon; they are referred to simply as Chaos from ancient Rome. The burn is a symbol of their birth."

Kate did not respond immediately. "That's great, but what did I do to deserve it?"

"They create colonies within drifts of ash and you were most likely too close for comfort," Kraus explained briefly as he shut the book he was skimming with a soft 'poof.' "I can't do much for the injury besides wash it and treat it as a traditional burn."

"Okay," Kate nodded blankly and her eyes were ripped from their dry, zoning state as she watched the containment suit walk to the sink beside the work bench, washing and sterilizing tools and cloths. "Kraus, can you feel anything? When you're working?" her mind suddenly hit a wall at the concept that he lacked nerve-endings, the prime factor of touch.

Johann stopped moving the arms of his suit and Kate could hear the water running in front of him. A silence commenced that seemed to last for several minutes. "I can feel pressure," his accent split through the quiet like a hot blade. "I can feel... contact. Texture is alien to me, as is warmth. I had memories once of skin and clothe. You can only go so long without a sense before it digresses into a concept, a thought." he turned to her with a wet rag in one hand and a brown glass bottle in the other. "It is similar to losing your sight or even your limbs, I presume." he closed the distance between them and motioned for her to lift her shirt again which she did. "You miss it for some time until the ache becomes a shell and even when someone reminds you of the loss your regret of its absence becomes melancholy."

Kate was entranced by his words. Due to his robotic appearance she had simply written him off as a highly programmed mechanism, something made for a duty. Her regret ran deep to her pit and she found herself growing more embarrassed each moment. She observed his cleaning routine and clenched her teeth to the burn of the alcohol.

"For example," Johann began again while retrieving and cutting pallets of bandaging. "When I touched you, I could sense your wound and its history in a way you never could. But I was unable to detect the heat radiating from your core." he strategically taped the soft fabric over the burn. "I could not feel the goose bumps on our skin from the draft." his voice fell to silence as he finished his work.

"Even though you say the feeling becomes melancholy," Kate worded her sentence very carefully, her stomach tight with nervousness she hadn't anticipated. For the first time in their professional relationship she was afraid to offend him. "Does it...?" she couldn't finish. She was prodding him with questions that could have been asked in the beginning.

"Does it hurt?" he jumped in quickly, his mental abilities reminding her that he was beyond normal human capacity. "That is without question." he turned his back to her as he reorganized the books on his shelf. "The burn should heal completely in approximately two weeks. I cannot guarantee it won't scar."

Kate braced her palms against the arms of the chair but her body was reluctant to stand. She felt she was walking out on something with potential, a chance at connection with an agent who was the complete opposite of herself.

"Doctor Kraus," she spoke in a solid tone and he turned to look at her, releasing a gust of steam. "This may be completely out of line and inappropriate but I can't leave without..." she shook her head and did not glance at him as she spoke. "What does... what do you feel like? Your... form?" the familiar silence returned like yearly snow and finally her eyes leveled with the containment suit.

The bars that ran across the indented cylinder on the front of his helmet clicked rhythmically but he did not speak for several seconds. "My form?" he asked suddenly, and mainly to himself. "Es wurde zu lange..." he approached her with hesitant steps, his fingers joined at the tips as if in anticipation. "Are you not repulsed?" his submissive tone concerned Kate, as though she had made a terrible mistake. Perhaps it was dangerous.

"I guess not," she realized it as she said it. "I feel intrigued, maybe. A little frightened."

"Well you have nothing to fear," he assured her with a dry laugh that dropped almost instantly. "I cannot harm you unless I wished it. The feeling, though..." he tapped his fingers together. "It will be concerning at first."

"I will be brave then," Kate smiled despite the anxiety constricting her insides.

"Okay well," Kraus had always been confident, assertive, and often times bossy. But this had vanished with a simple sentence and crumbled into a reluctant mess, afresh with curiosity. "I must leave my suit."

Kate's brow furrowed. "Won't you dissipate?"

"If I stay uncontained for too long, yes. I would die." his fear was apparent now too and this left his visitor unnerved. "It will be for only a moment... only a moment..." he was fiddling with the various knobs on his suit and Kate observed with growing discomfort as he clicked a gauge that released an unfriendly hissing noise, long thin clouds of steam streaming from it and disappearing into the air. As this happened the containment suit deflated to a heaped mess at her feet, as if it had never been occupied at all.

She was about to comment on his invisibility when the shape of a human body formed in front of her, hazy and out of focus. She drew in a quiet gasp, never believing this was possible before now.

"It's alarming, isn't it?" Kraus's voice emitted from the apparition. "To see me like this."

"It's incredible," she whispered and could not keep herself from reaching forward. He didn't recoil as her hand met a completely unfamiliar surface texture, her body jumping from the shock. It resembled gelatin at first, like it was covered with a resistant skin. Then her palm pressed through and the sensation became one of sweeping warm water, but much lighter in density. Through the substance she could feel vibration, a tactile murmuring that was similar to the fuel guzzling of modern machinery but a life force pulsated within it. Her mind was awash with sensations as it tried to generalize what it was experiencing. She was not touching him, she was embracing his body as a whole - her hand was inside his chest but it did not pain him. The concept was unreal.

As quickly as it had begun it ended. His body began to break down into steam, leaving tiny droplets of water on her hand that when she touched disappeared without wetness. When she lifted her head the containment suit had been refilled, the soft hiss of air shooting through the vents of his helmet. A cold seep of despair formed between her lungs and ribs.

Kate opened her mouth to speak but couldn't gather words.

"I did not mean to frighten you," Kraus remarked eagerly when he saw her reaction. "I knew it may not be the best idea but it's been years since someone-"

"It was beautiful," she interjected with a scoff-like laugh. "I can't think of another word."

"I thought of the substance that way when I was in Munich, before the fire," he explained as he reset the various mechanisms on his chest and neck. "When it became my body I began to consider it as something much less impressive."

Kate could not tear herself from her thoughts. "Could you feel me?" she inquired, her urgent tone so unlike her normal facade. Kraus had barely seen her take interest in much besides work since they'd met. She definitely had never before cared this much for him.

"I could."

"How?"

A sound resembling a sigh was heard as he released another gust. "It isn't something I could explain to you that you would be able to fully relate to," he admitted with an undertone of sadness. "But I could."

"I felt your heart."

"You can call it that."

"What was it?" her round eyes were mirrors of her internal reaction, overflowing with curiosity and a new type of passion. Johann was as confused and excited as she was, for he had felt her warmth and with it resurfaced a countless number of memories connected to the same stimuli, shedding themselves of dust.

Steam blew from his vents. "It was what many people refer to as their heart. It can be called emotion but in very raw form. When I lost my flesh my soul became the embodiment of my mind." he paused to examine her face as he was unsure she was following. "Many people cannot handle the level of intimacy that is reached by interacting with an uncontained form."

"I can't shake the feeling," she admitted in a wary tone and Kraus sensed her exhaustion.

"If you wish to lie down in my chamber you may," he suggested as he returned to his workbench to distract himself from the long-forgotten sensations he was experiencing. He heard the creak of the chair as Kate stood and forcefully lifted her feet in shuffled steps towards the back of the room. He waited until the chamber door clunked shut before he looked up from his busy work, hot steam gushing through his helmet in a sigh. He should have told her.


	2. Chapter 2

Kate awoke several hours later and sat up too quickly, suffering the faintness of a head rush. The only window in the chamber was dark and she realized her nap had taken her five hours forward into the early evening. She groaned at the lost possibilities of work as she rubbed deep into her eyes, her throat thick with grogginess. Slowly her mind caught up with her body and it began to sift through recent memories in order to prepare her for the present.

Her breath caught in her throat and she moved to stand when she saw the figure in the doorway.

"I knew you had work to do but I didn't want to wake you," Kraus explained as he turned on the lights which barely lifted the room's warm dimness. He crossed the room and sat in a creaky wooden chair that rested in front of a huge, organized desk. "How are you feeling, then?"

Kate was honestly on the brink of nausea. Naps did that to her, and combined with the day's events she felt as though she was on the brink of losing her mind. "I don't feel well," she replied simply and suddenly wished she was in the room alone to save herself the task of having to hide her extreme anxiety.

"That's to be expected," Johann paused before going on. "In my own excitement I barely had the decency to explain something to you. Something important." Kate gazed at him with a neutral expression. "Apparitions, such as me, often have strong effects on humans. Due to my particular condition I can interact with you or anyone on a daily basis without leaving any sort of mental mark. Other situations though..." a gust of steam hissed, forcing a break. "Very few individuals have touched me or wanted to touch me in my current state."

"What are you getting at?" Kate's fear was uncontrollably presented as anger and impatience.

"If you were a piece of machinery the explanation would be simpler," he returned her tone without hesitation as his inability to outline the situation was flustering. "I have encoded myself on you and you on me. We have bonded at a paranormal level."

Kate's expression was one of complete shock, her jaw open slightly. She cupped her hands over her face. Kraus was decimated; she had asked him for something he could have easily denied, easily rejected. But thinking back it didn't seem that easy. For eight years he had lived with those outside of the Bureau waving him away as a freak, as disgusting, as unnerving. Conversation was plentiful, but intimacy? Mere handshakes through metal and coarse leather, people asking him, "What does it feel like?" never "May I know how it feels?"

"Whether or not you want to accept it, it has happened," he made a weak attempt at comforting her, knowing she most likely return the same enthusiasm.

"You could have said something-" her voice broke and she rushed out of the room, slamming the door in his office with her exit.

Johann released a breezed exhale and turned the chair towards his desk, lying his hands on the swirled wooden surface. He examined the brass and aluminum that created the hollow knuckles for his fingers, the piping that traveled as a frame for his arms, the thick cloth material as his skin. For a moment he became overwhelmed with despair, a feeling he hadn't experienced as strongly since he woke up to the first containment suit the Bureau had created for him. "This is your body now," he had been told.

"Mein Körper..." he said softly as his began to touch the mechanisms along his shoulder and collar. So complex the casing that kept him alive. His psyche matched; due to his state he worked constantly, not needing rest or food. He had read countless hundreds of books even in the past 5 years or so. His constant pride in his abilities and achievements slipped away from him as he assessed himself in this moment.

Finally he rose to return to his work.

* * *

Kate did not show up in his office for three days. When she finally did her expression was exhausted, dark bags under eyes and a lack of make-up across her pale cheeks. Her arms were crossed in insecurity as soon as she stepped in and saw him slumped over his workbench, at least six books opened at various angles across its surface.

"This... bond thing, how long is it going to last?" her tone implied a wavering temper and it immediately annoyed Kraus.

He looked at her as he shut a book. "Why, are you suffering already?"

"You could say that," she extended one arm in front of her lazily as she blew an exhale upwards, lifting her bangs from her forehead.

"I tried to explain but you left."

"I had my reasons."

"I'm sure you did."

Kate huffed in a way that irked Kraus deeply.

"You're unbelievable! I thought for a moment you were someone completely different than who I have worked under for almost a year! You became incredibly compassionate and I was daft enough to fall for it. And now you come back to discuss a serious concept and make noises like a child - mein Gott, du spinnst-" Johann began shouting in German, slamming books shut and shoving stacks of paper around the desk carelessly. "Ich muss verrückt! Zu denken, Sie waren nett-"

"Johann, stop." Kate's sternness was faulting into pity. The shouting had knocked her back into the present and the undeniable fact that she was blaming him for something she had pressed so passionately. "I do want to hear what this is all about, I just-"

"You're a woman," he interrupted with such harshness Kate started. "Women often choose the most destructive defense mechanism - shutting out the problem." he saw her anger but didn't budge. "You didn't have to leave, Kate. Your life isn't going to end because you... touched some endoplasmic gas bag."

Her dislike towards him had peaked and yet the emotions she felt were not all negative. In their time working together she hadn't heard him refer to himself so begrudgingly. "Can we talk now?" was all that came out of her mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

They sat together in his chamber the way they had done that night before but Kate's body language had changed. Her face was still weary but relaxed and her arms were no longer crossed. She was determined to keep their conversation peaceful even if her fear got the best of her. She hadn't slept more than five minutes at a time since she had left Kraus's office and fought the urge to blame her irrational aggression on this.

"Please try to explain it simply," Kate asked in a quiet voice, unoffensive and gentle.

"Of course," Krauss sighed through steam and poised his hands in front of himself, using them quite often when speaking to make up for his lack of expression. "Ectoplasm is something I commonly exerted during my position as a spiritual medium. It comes in many forms; steams, gels, liquids. It's said to be the physicality of a spirit making itself known. Well, as I have had to mention on numerous occasions, I am completely represented as ectoplasm. I can take any of the various forms though steam is the lightest and most manipulatible." Kate nodded as she followed along; she had heard much crazier stories through the Bureau. "As you can imagine, lacking a body makes this state high in energy - basically pure emotion, as I mentioned before. It is hard to pinpoint an exact way to explain it but when you made physical contact with the representitive energy your frontal lobe was affected by the... meeting."

Kate nodded slowly. "And this created a bond."

"Yes," Kraus responded with an undertone of enthusiasm. "One that is really unmatched by anything most people can obtain between two humans. From here on it is very difficult to speak of and grasp."

"That's fine because I think I've reached my limit," she laughed and it was genuine, as though she had attempted to accept some aspect of the situation. "So I am now in love with you?" she asked, half joking.

"No," Johann shook his head and waved a hand, "Love is not a word fit for this connection. Again, the whole words thing is a real damper on its description. I don't think it should be discussed too much or you may have another episode." he was teasing her now.

A smile spread across her face but then it faded as she began to turn over another thought. "Am I always going to...? I can't seem to..." she searched hard for the correct sentence. "I can't push this out of my mind. You, mainly."

Kraus's steam hissed and was followed by the clicking of his mouthpiece. "I have only read about what we are dealing with now, so I cannot tell you whether or not it will stop or if it's normal."

Kate sighed deeply, threading her fingers through her hair. "You're killing me here," she laughed. Kraus didn't reply and it was surprising. Normally such a chatter box, he had fallen silent by his own will instead of loss for words. During this break in conversation, thoughts began to pop into Kate's head that caused her body to be gripped with goosebumps and a warm shudder. She resisted and focused instead on the grained patterns of the hardwood floor. "If it happened again, would the result be stronger?"

"Doesn't the same work for human intimacy?" Kraus stated blankly. "Repetition breeds need."

She nodded in agreement but was heavily distracted by what was going on internally. Something had flipped a switch in her subconcious that had doused her body with hormones. Her hands were shaking and she tucked them under her thighs to hide the tremors.

"I have to work on some things, I'll leave you to rest for a while," Kraus stood and slowly exited the room, his leg mechanics clacking loudly.  
Kate was washed in panic. Her mind was jumping from thought to thought: Johann's talk of intimacy and connection had led to curiosity in the areas of erotic touch, even intercourse. She felt disgusted but at the same time an animalistic feeling had seized a part of her. He had seemed so eager when she suggested their earlier interaction and she wondered if he would respond the same way to her experimentation. But what was she thinking? She had known Kraus for months and had completely lacked attraction to the steam suit.

She laid down on the padded bench and stared at the ceiling until the most intense wave of anxiety surpassed her. She began to think rationally, to weigh the situation. In the calmer state her situation started to seem ridiculous again. A connection? It seemed impossible. But this was the Bureau, how could this possibly be impossible?


End file.
